Wednesday, February 23, 2005

cybervandals urinating on kenyan history books

cybervandals urinatingon kenyan history booksfrom their lairs in the interneturchins too young to rememberthe terror of the early eightiesspend sleepless bug-eyed crazed nightshounding the survivors of industrial area and kamiti

when some of them were drinking powdered milkand rehearsing the sychophantic praise songsof the nyayo dictatorshipsome of us were eye-witnessingour comrades coughing bloodas they expired from treatable diseases in the dungeons of kamiti

today,when no one has to fearand cower,looking fretfully over their shouldersfor the menacing special branch goonsalcoholic luo pranksters in californiasee in our collective incarceration narrativesa football to be kicked aroundin their deranged, unhinged daily outpourings of hate online

we watch, grimacingas they deny our very existencetrying to steal our namesand rob us of our experiencesbecause their own names are sulliedmuddied with turgid boastsof dating the daughters of american presidential wannabesand sipping cognac with celebrity african-american entertainers

it is surreal and bizarreto contemplatethe hourly, the daily yelpsof insecure drunks consumed by self-hatredtwisted by blind envyand deformed by their own complexesabout accidents of birth and upbringing

in their self-loathingthey lash outdigging dead parents of people they hanker to bemolesting teenagers they have never met with their liesraping women they will never see with their constant defamation

still we hold on to our memories:

we remember titus adungosi and how he died a needless death in kamitiafter years of negligence in naivashawe remember unda kombethe ex-airforce soldier who died when he should have livedwe remembered the nameless social prisonerwho died in our arms on the night of august sixteenth nineteen eighty fouras we were carrying him out in a lice ridden blanketin ward number eight, cell block b, kamiti maximumhaving coughed out his lungs in the shit splatteredoverflowing toiletthat was shared by sixty prisoners in a space meant for fifteen

we remember the sad night of wednesday july ninth nineteen eighty fivewhen ochuka,okumu, mirasi, ogidi, njereman,ojode and other kaf prisonerswere hanged horribly in the midst of the nairobi women's conference

we remember the days we spent in the punishment cellsnaked without blankets freezing on half rationsafter being condemned by yet another prison based kangaroo court

we remember, how could we forget the day on july twelve eighty fivewhen the writer of these lines was dragged by sergeant mutuayes the same brute that our online stalkers adopt as their heroesdragged to the duty office where superintendent mbuthiaordered fifteen goons to kick and punch, hit and slapthe writer of these linesfor his audacity at saying hi to mwandawiro mghangawhen they both waiting for the bi-weekly prison hair cut

today in the year two thousand and fivea jackass who was three years old with mucus running down his filthy facedares to insult that memory, to take away that memory...

well, this small spontaneous, instant poemis onyango oloo's simple way of informing him and his cyber ilkthat it was not for nothing we survived solitary confinementin the punishment blocktranscended maximum security wallsit is not for nothing that we lived when we could have diedas the nyayo house survivors said in their anthologythose of who were jailed by moiwe lived to tell our taleeven to you who mocked us theneven to you who were too young to know anythingeven to you with whom we continue to grapple

we lived to tell

and one day, we will recite these poems as we see your remainspicked apart by jackals, hyenas, wolves and vultures...

we did survive imprisonmentwe will shake off the daily yelps of deranged maniacs in cyberspace...